PORTAGE, IN – The Chicago/Midwest Regional Emmy® nominated documentary “Shifting Sands: On the Path to Sustainability” makes its first and only theatrical premiere on Tuesday, June 20 at 7:00 p.m. at the Portage Imax. The theatrical premiere celebrates Indiana’s June Coastal Awareness Month and honors local organizations involved in protecting Lake Michigan, such as the Indiana Department of Natural Resources Lake Michigan Coastal Program.

“We are glad that Shifting Sands is part of Coastal Awareness Month in June,” said Mike Molnar, program director for Indiana DNR Lake Michigan Coastal Program. “While the film helps tell the story of Northwest Indiana, Coastal Awareness Month is a chance for Hoosiers to explore and celebrate northwest Indiana’s unique coastal resources and the region’s overall importance.”

Lake Michigan is a source of recreation, drinking water, and industrial activity; yet these competing uses thrive within Indiana’s forty-five miles of Lake Michigan shoreline—the most biologically diverse in the entire Great Lakes region.

“The Portage Imax showing provides a special opportunity for the public to both explore the history of our Lake Michigan coastal area on the big screen, and to meet the people working daily to protect our land, water and air daily,” said Patricia Wisniewski, the film’s producer and director.

The documentary, an idea of Lee Botts—a prominent American environmentalist known for leading conservation and restoration work around the Great Lakes—comes a century after a national park was first proposed to safeguard the Indiana Dunes’ spectacular landscape of dunes, woodlands, wetlands and unsurpassed biological diversity. The national park proposal sparked a movement, one that spanned several decades and cultivated environmental policies with worldwide impact. Today, the advocacy from that movement has transformed into a new model of cooperation, where industrialists and environmentalists—once bitter adversaries—work together to steer its community toward a more sustainable future.

Currently, a congressional bill is proposed to retitle the Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore to Indiana Dunes National Park. If passed, the bill would create Indiana’s first national park.

Event Details

Hoosiers are invited to join the film’s producers at Portage IMAX along with local organizations working to protect Lake Michigan. After the screening, the film’s production team and local conservation organizations will lead a discussion with the audience.

“Shifting Sands: On the Path to Sustainability” explores how the Indiana Dunes region, through its influential environmental battles, offers a blueprint towards a more sustainable future. Since its August 2016 nationwide debut, #ShiftingSandsMovie has aired across 241 public television stations. The film was also nominated for a Chicago/Midwest Regional Emmy® Award by the Chicago/Midwest Chapter of the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences. Members of the production team include Lee Botts, executive producer; Pat Wisniewski, producer and director; Tom Desch, producer, editor and writer; and Rana Segal, producer and director of photography. Proceeds from the film benefit Lakeshore Public Television (WYIN) and the Dunes Learning Center. For more information about the film, visitshiftingsandsmovie.com.